Sat, Apr 15, 2006

The talk of Washington during the first week of the congressional Easter recess was how Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has seized control of the Senate despite a 10-seat advantage by the Republicans.

Hollywood has yet to make a "great" movie about Washington. This is the cinematic corollary to the even hoarier cliche that the United States has yet to produce a great novel about the nation's capital. These cliches reign supreme because they happen to be true.

Many of the hundreds of thousands of Hispanic demonstrators who poured out into the streets on April 10 may not know much English, but they've learned the language of American politics: Flags. Tons of flags. And make them American.

If the Department of Homeland Security were doing its job, it would have joined the Immigration and Naturalization Service, checking identification and employment records for at least some of the millions demonstrating for citizenship in recent days.

On Tuesday, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had to take back a key sentence in a brief he had filed earlier with the court concerning charges against Scooter Libby, former top aide to Veep Dick Cheney, for perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation into who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame. That sentence had spawned a spate of page-one Bush-bad stories.

I have to ask if the American public is in touch with reality. Public surveys show that most people believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. But circumstances don't support this reductive view.

Perhaps the most dubious cliche in American history is the one intoned over and again after terrorists killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001. That was the cliche that claimed that now "America has changed forever."

The proliferation of new political labels is a sign of the times: The old Reagan coalition, that potent conglomeration of libertarians, entrepreneurs, social conservatives and anticommunists, is cracking apart. The Dems appear headed for electoral victory, but without yet a sign of a coherent governing philosophy among them.

Suddenly, thankfully, it does not seem that Hillary Clinton is on an automatic trajectory to become the next Democratic nominee for president. Two recent polls suggest problems that may loom in her path.

Last month, the unhinged government school teacher of the month award went to Jay Bennish -- a left-wing, anti-war screecher/teacher who used his high school world geography class in the Denver area as a Bush-bashing bully pulpit.

If you're a scientist working for private industry, it helps to invent something useful. But if you're a scientist trying to get funding from the government, you're better off telling the world how horrible things are.

Poor John Green. The executive producer of ABC's weekend "Good Morning America" broadcasts got a month-long involuntary vacation after his private e-mails were exposed saying "Bush makes me sick," and that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has "Jew shame."

If my parents and their fellow Englishmen could put up with descending Nazi bombs on their houses, we should be able to cope with Bush's descending poll numbers without trying to one up Dante's description of hell.

On Monday, throngs of reportedly more than 1 million people nationwide, many of them undoubtedly illegal aliens, demonstrated just how wrong the president was by massing in our public squares to demand U.S. citizenship for illegal aliens.

Activists who are organizing mass marches and demonstrations in cities across America may well be congratulating themselves on the huge numbers of people they can get to turn out to protest efforts in Congress to reduce illegal immigration.

In the last six months, Americans have been treated to quite a spectacle: famous pundits and politicians hitting the sawdust trail to the mourner's bench to confess, "Had I only known then what I know now, I would never have supported this war in Iraq."

Mon, Apr 10, 2006

Like many teenagers, President George W. Bush dashed off to Cancun for spring break. Protected by a long and impenetrable fence and plenty of security guards, he met privately with the Mexican president and wealthy chief executive officers from both countries.

Hugh Hefner wants to be remembered as a philanthropist and a cultural revolutionary. "Looking across America's pornographic wasteland," says Chuck Colson, "I might think of a more appropriate description."

Last week, a young black man accused me of racism – apparently in response to some of my recent columns including “Change Your Ethnicity Day.” The man to whom he made the accusation was also a black man. Unbeknownst to my accuser, the other black man was a guy I took into my home for four months while he was going through a rough divorce.

This is an important week for Jews and Christians. Jews celebrate the first day of Passover on Thursday, and Christians celebrate Good Friday, followed by Easter on Sunday. Both holidays link sorrow with liberation as the tragic gives way to redemption, with rejoicing in the renewal of spring.

Mr. Answer Man, why is it that many people don't like the idea of Katie Couric becoming the new Dan Rather? Is it because, after all those father figures, it's jarring to get the national kid sister? If we're going to bypass Dad, why can't we have a reassuring mother figure instead of turning immediately to one of the perky kids?

Alpine, California, is a peaceful rural community that lies at the foothills of the Viejas Mountains, east of San Diego. Bordering the Cleveland National Forest, this friendly village hardly seems a likely setting for a show-down over free enterprise, disabled rights and lawsuit abuse.

A rivulet, soon to be a river, of journalism is reporting -- as a mystery deciphered, even a scandal unearthed -- that McCain, who occupies the Senate seat once held by Barry Goldwater, is a conservative Republican.

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